HELSINKI, May 18 (Reuters) - Nokia NOKIA.HE said on Wednesday it has signed an exclusive 10-year licensing deal with Finnish company HMD Global Oy to create Nokia-branded phones and tablets. Nokia said it will receive royalty payments from HMD for sales of Nokia-branded mobile products, covering both brand and intellectual property rights. Once the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, Nokia was wrongfooted by the rise of smartphones and eclipsed by Apple AAPL.O and Samsung 005930.KS . It sold its handset business to Microsoft MSFT.O in 2014.

It however held on to its phone patents and started to prepare a comeback by brand-licensing, although it has had to wait due to a non-compete deal with Microsoft.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced it would sell its feature phone assets to FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn, and HMD.

As part of that deal, HMD is buying the rights to use the Nokia brand on feature phones. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nFWN18F099

(Reporting by Jussi Rosendahl; editing by Jason Neely) ((jussi.rosendahl@thomsonreuters.com; +358 9 6805 0248; Reuters Messaging: jussi.rosendahl.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: NOKIA CORP HMD/